Texts
by ristiki
Summary: John texts Sherlock to no avail. John says bye, Sherlock's return has been veiled in sadness. Sherlock, in tears, meets someone he thought was long gone. Rated T for Suicide. (I don't own any BBC characters)
1. Texting Sherlock

_Are you grabbing the milk? –JW_

_You're taking too long. Come back. –JW_

_Sherlock, this isn't funny anymore. Come home. –JW_

_I threw out the rotting body parts. Sorry. –JW_

_I hope you're doing well, deducing I presume. –JW_

_Merry Christmas. –JW_

_My therapist is trying to make me forget. I refuse. –JW_

_I have a new best friend; the skull is a very good listener. –JW_

_She tells me not too, but I still believe in you. I always will. –JW_

_Mycroft took the skull, now I have nobody. –JW_

_If you don't come home I'll get a new roommate, Sherlock. –JW_

_I've made an ad and posted it. This is a nice flat, someone will respond I bet. –JW_

_Got a few people, not like you. One was a fan of yours, tall blonde guy. I punched him in the jaw. –JW_

_I see you in my nightmares. –JW_

_The milk is taking a long time to get back to the flat, Sherlock. Too long. –JW_

_Please come home. Please. –JW_

_Sherlock, I am running out of distractions. –JW_

_I found your stash. It feels good. Thank you. –JW_

_I ran out, Sherlock. It's only been six days and I ran out. –JW_

_Are you bored of me? I can change. Please come home Sherlock. Please. –JW_

_I can't go on much longer. –JW_

_I am trying so hard to believe. –JW_

_Mrs. Hudson doesn't come up anymore. She doesn't believe. I'm the only one left. –JW_

_Sherlock, please. I am breaking apart. I admit it. Now come back. –JW_

_I will always believe. –JW_

_Alright, I give up. –JW_


	2. Changes in John

Over the past few years, John had sent exactly twenty-five text messages to Sherlock. He tried to resist the urge for failed contact, but the feeling of 'he may be on the other end of the line' made him too hopeful- every time.

As the years passed, the texts became gradually sadder, just as John did. As John deteriorated, the content of his words did as well. As time went on, John became addicted to cocaine, cigarettes, and alcohol. Sure he was still the little man with the graying blond hair, but he was different. He had developed a heavy smoker's cough, yellowing teeth, and he was about thirty-seven pounds underweight from the heavy and constant cocaine use.

"I wish I had something as little as a three patch problem." John murmured his voice thick and scratchy from smoking. A small bubble of insane laughter crossed his barely parted, cracked lips. He took the last drag of his cigarette and squeezed the lit end into dust. He burned his fingers, again, but again, he didn't feel a thing.

He had decided when he woke up from another nightmare of the day three years prior that the day had finally come. He pulled out his bashed cell phone, the one he'd thrown all over the streets and flat in anger over the years, and drafted a text message to the only one he ever tried to talk to anymore. 'Alright, I give up.' It read.


	3. Coming Home Fast

Sherlock opened his cell phone at the buzzing alert it made in his coat pocket. "John, not again." He sighed, tired of the constant communication from his flatmate. He had left with a task and every time he received a text message from John, the task was interrupted by something that felt so much like guilt that Sherlock could have sworn he had a caring bone in his body.

He usually waited until there was an opportune moment in the hunt to read each message, but since he was only a mile or so off from the final destination, he decided to read the text the moment it arrived. It read: Alright, I give up. –JW

"I give up?" Sherlock spoke aloud, walking at a swift pace along the paved street he knew so well. He was almost home. The web was demolished and he could finally return to 221b Baker Street. As he walked, he wondered- and then it hit him. "JOHN." Sherlock gasped and his pace shot instantly from a casual quick stroll to a sprint. He ran through the streets navigating the pavement with ease.


	4. Choose Your Weapon

John set down his phone on the stand next to his rocker and rose. _Rope, knife, pill, poison, drugs, gun, and jump- so many options, _he thought as he walked down the hallway. He couldn't use the rope because there was no ceiling fan to hang from. No knives because the blood would seep through the floor over Mrs. Hudson- no need to ruin her floors and devastate her so soon. No pill because he shot the cabby that had the only pills he would deem worthy. No poison because he had thrown away the chemicals and concoctions to forget about Sherlock, which he never did. No drugs because he had used up his stash- again. The only options left were the gun and the building.

Oh, to jump down to death would be too easy, too emotionally connected and too perfect of a death. John knew he was not meant for a perfect death, but a soldier's one- and a soldier's death is never perfect. "The gun it is." He said, the first real smile of many months crossing his lips.

It was finally going to be over, all of the pain and the heartache and the isolation- over with a single pull of a trigger. John went to Sherlock's room, where he now slept, and retrieved his gun.


	5. Too Little Too Late

Sherlock opened the door and ran up the stairs, unfazed by the gawking Mrs. Hudson at the doorway. He ran two steps at a time and got to the door, panting. At the door to the flat, the forced it open just as he heard the nearby click of click of the safety on John's gun- a sound he for some reason had not deleted.

"John." Sherlock gasped, panting for air. John stiffened. "This is a joke. I am hallucinating." John said, grinning in a wicked manner. This was not the John Watson Sherlock had left behind.

Graying over hair, rotting teeth, leathery texture to the skin, inability to stand still, slight tremors, cane usage, raspy voice and hearty cough. John was in a major decline since Sherlock left and he felt the guilt crash into him like a tidal wave. "John…" he whispered, taking a step toward John.

"Stay where you are. I don't want you to touch me. You are not real. This is going too far." John demanded his voice strong and clear for all the pain he was in. Slowly, he raised the gun to his head. Sherlock made eye contact with him before noticing the movement John had made. The blue eyes shifted toward the barrel of the gun for a moment and it clicked. Before Sherlock had the chance to grab the gun, the trigger was pulled. Blood splattered over the wallpaper and Sherlock ran to John's side, barely hearing Mrs. Hudson's shrill scream past the thumping of his fast-paced heart in his ears.


	6. Not Inhuman

Before he reached the body, he knew John was dead. There was no time to say goodbye, no time to say he was home, no time for anything. John had punished him for all of the pain Sherlock had brought to him. John intended to die no matter what and seeing Sherlock made it better, he presumed, because not only would he escape his whirlwind of the excuse of a life he was living, but he hurt Sherlock with a pain tenfold his own.

Sherlock laughed at the sheer mockery of the display John had shown in killing himself in that precise moment. Soon, his laughter was silenced by another force in his being- pain. Sherlock felt the weight of what he had done to John upon his shoulders. He felt human emotion stronger than he ever allowed for in any other situation in his entire life. Tears welled in his eyes and fell upon the corpse that had been the home to John's broken soul only minutes prior.

He felt John's cool, limp hand and traced his fingers up to John's eyes, closing the lids over the empty eyeballs which had begun to glaze over. John was dead and there was nothing Sherlock could do but know he was the murderer. He thought and thought as he held John over his lap, leaning over the small man's frame in a protective stance as Lestrade and his team arrived.


	7. Graveyard Encounter

Sherlock went to the funeral wearing his coat and scarf. He took with him nothing but his mobile phone and John's. It was raining, but he took no umbrella. It was 12:45 and the funeral was just ending, the mass of people drifting away in tears. Sherlock waited and waited until everyone was almost gone and then he went to the casket.

John looked so peaceful, his mouth slack and his eyes closed lightly. Sherlock smiled and thought _At least he is happy now._ And took out John's mobile. He placed the mobile in John's hands and the casket was shut before anyone of the small group remaining noticed.

The people left and finally only Sherlock was left. The casket was covered in dirt and everything about John was soon to be gone from the living world because Mrs. Hudson was taking all of John's things from the flat before Sherlock got home, to save him from the pain that was inevitably going to take over. Sherlock stood upon the new dirt, the mud in the rain, and stared at the gravestone before him.

John H. Watson

Veteran, Doctor and Wonderful Man

March 31, 1972- May 9, 2014

Sherlock took out his mobile after reading the carving what seemed like one thousand times and composed a message.

_I'm sorry I forgot the milk. –SH_

Sherlock laughed to himself, wishing that John were there to read the text and they could sit at home; laughing about something so small like that, something that mattered so little- yet so much. He wished he could have responded to the text messages over the time the web was being taken apart. He wished he had run faster to get to John. He wished John would have shot him instead of himself.

John knew in the moment he killed himself that Sherlock would have to live forever with the guilt and the pain and that was the final reason he pulled the trigger. _Bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator._ Sherlock connected his words to the act that was fueled to break him and he did just that.

Overrun with emotion once again, Sherlock dropped his phone and collapsed to his knees over the mud, grasping the cold, wet gravestone. His body shook and tears began to flow with the ferocity of a raging river. Sherlock saw the scene in repeat, playing over and over in his mind. The tears didn't stop and the sobs the racked his body were relentless.

Sherlock didn't return to 221b Baker Street that night, but slept curled up over John's grave, holding close to his gravestone. The next morning he woke and saw a note upon the gravestone which read, _Go to your grave, Sherlock Holmes. _Sherlock looked at the block letters, unsure of the messenger or source of the note.

Eyes reddened and puffy, he squinted to perfect his vision and made his way sleepily over to his gravestone. There was a bunch of flowers and a note in writing he could never forget. The note read _I'm so sorry, Sherlock._ In John's lettering.

Just as Sherlock began to feel more pain welling in his chest, he heard a throat clearing behind him. He pivoted and saw none other than his established enemy who simply stated, "That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note..."


End file.
